Probably for the first time, a Bollywood film print ad doesn’t quote mainstream critics

Barnali Ray Shukla’s directorial debut Kucch Luv Jaisaa was unanimously panned by critics, thanks to the fact that there was barely enough material in the story to justify even a short film.It did make it to the big screen, with some delays, because of the combined clout of producer Vipul Amrutlal Shah and the fact that his wife Shifaali was playing the female lead. What caught our attention was that after getting negative responses from all the mainstream Bollywood reviewers, the makers have used the statements of two housewives (who seem to have liked the film) in press advertisements. This is probably the first time in Bollywood that any film has resorted to this method of trying to salvage itself. How well it works in pulling the audiences into the theatres is another thing altogether, but it seems to be a safer bet than a recent case when almost everyone in Bollywood’s indie cinema circuit (including Anurag Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra and Imtiaz Ali) were seen quoting superlatives for Prawaal Raman’s 404 while the audience seemed to be feeling let down by the film. What is also surprising is that those who rooted for Raman’s film are the same people who have benefitted a lot from Barnali’s husband writer-director-actor Saurabh Shukla’s work and they haven’t said one good thing about Kucch Luv Jaisaa. Bollywood works in strange ways!